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Article History

Received: 14 August 2025

Accepted: 7 November 2025

First Online: 29 December 2025

Declarations

:

: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee for the Humanities (ECH) at the University of Ghana (ID: ECH 297/23–24) and the Research Ethics Office at the University of Alberta (ID: Pro00143771). Additional permission was sought from appropriate authorities, e.g., community leaders and heads of institutions, who assisted in recruiting participants or providing appropriate venues for the FGDs. The research conducted between July and August 2024 was guided by strict adherence to the ethical principles of research involving human subjects, which is centred on respect for human dignity, beneficence and nonmaleficence, according to the ethical standards of the responsible committee and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 and its later amendments. Prior to any data collection, the participants were informed in detail about the objectives of the study, the potential risks and benefits of their participation, and their right to withdraw at any time without penalty. To that end, we obtained written informed consent from all consenting participants.To ensure confidentiality, APEC Ghana worked directly with the participants to collect biodata, and the collected information was uploaded to an encrypted cloud server and not shared with anyone except the APEC staff assigned to the project. The identities of the participants were anonymized when the findings were reported.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.